I'm dreaming...

...of a social network that allows me to customize my engagement level of each individual connection.
You're a foodie and your favorite movie is Rambo? I want to read your restaurant reviews. Not your movie reviews.
You're a loner with eclectic music taster? I don't care about dating tips but would love to find out about new music from you.

And, while we're at it, I would love to participate in an opt-in advertising model in this network. Joe BMW shares with advertisers that he will buy a new car in 2 months. He's interested in a 3-Series BMW. Joe BMW wants to hear from competitive advertisers.
Any competitive advantages? Deals? Promotions? Once Joe BMW bought the car, he can opt-out, not to hear from automotive advertisers again until he's in market again.

One can dream.

LinkedIn thinks I'm into Martha

LinkedIn just redesigned their site and it created some buzz in the blogosphere. One of the new features is the news feed, tailored to your company and interests. Interesting idea to create more stickiness on the site but it just doesn't work for me.

A little background: I work at Genex, an interactive marketing company. Genex was bought by Meredith a few months ago. Most of you know that Meredith has a huge footprint in the female marketing space. And that's the only explanation for my feed: Martha news all the time. Now, Genex might be owned by Meredith but my job is to focus on media for clients with mainly male audiences.
I'm sure I'm not only with this poor customization example of LinkedIn: Many digital agencies have various disciplines under one roof: SEM, SEO, Media, Engineering, QA, etc. What kind of feeds do they receive? Sure, there's a customization option on the feed but you need a lot of people within your organization to care about the feed before these changes really show up. And what if these users are mostly engineers?

I think many people will find this feature not useful and LinkedIn just gave them another reason not to come up. I just wish I could customize the feed for my own page or even be allowed to turn it off.
When is LinkedIn 3.0 happening?

Dear Hotels,

you charge a lot of money for a bed, bathroom and some amenities. But you don't seem to think about customer experience.
Case in point, this sad excuse of a body lotion bottle. It's so badly designed that you have to use Hulk-like forces to squeeze the lotion out. And even if you can bench-press 500 lbs., most of the lotion will remain in the bottle. Sure, I can live with dry skin for a few days but the frustration you created will be with me for a long time. Why not offer refillable bottles of shampoo, lotion and conditioner just like in any mediocre spa? It will help the environment and allow me to have silky, smooth skin again.
Oh, and while you're at it, why don't you increase the bandwidth of your wired and wireless Internet access? It's not 1996 anymore and my connection shouldn't feel like AOL is still running the show. Just a thought.
Uwe

The inhumane network

Advertising can be entertaining (Well, actually it should be!), inspirational, informational. Good creative combined with a sophisticated, well thought out media buy can be magical. Good creative combined with an unthoughtful media buy can be worse than Chinese water torture.

Case in point: Cisco's current campaign for their human network. Yesterday, I was catching up on my Fox shows online and enjoyed the first commercial interruption brought to me by Cisco - interesting visuals, intriguing story and creative. I even memorized the URL for later exploration. But my memory became really foggy when I had to watch the identical commercial message for a second time. Third time. By the fourth time, I felt like water was slowly dripping onto my forehead, driving me insane. And my drive to explre Cisco's site just disappeared and turned into anger. At the lazy media buyers who didn't even bother thinking about frequency capping, user experience and, most importantly, how they wasted their client's money.

It's very easy to turn an engaging experience into an annoyance if you didn't focus on the little details of each campaign.

Is being connected soooo 2007?

Under the title "Too much information? Ignore it.", Alex Williams discusses in Sunday's NY Times our daily information overload and a possible way out of it as described in Timothy Ferriss' book 'The 4-Hour Workweek:'

After reading Mr. Ferriss’s recent best seller, “The 4-Hour Workweek” (Crown), Jason Hoffman, a founder of Joyent, which designs Web-based software for small businesses, urged his employees to cut out the instant-messaging and swear off multitasking. From now on, he told them, severely restrict e-mail use and conduct business the old-fashioned way, by telephone.

“All of a sudden,” Mr. Hoffman said of the results, “their evenings are free. All of a sudden Monday doesn’t feel so overwhelming.”

Personally, I often feel overwhelmed by all the information available: Trades, Personal Email, Business Email, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, RSS feeds, etc. But I also don't want to get most of my news from waiters as Timothy Ferriss tells the NY Times.

Being connected will continue to be the new rock'n roll. We just have to find ways to adjust our life better. No 24/7 email, maybe 3/7 instead.
Ironically, Ferriss is now living what he's preaching:

Indeed, Mr. Ferriss makes little pretense of practicing what he preaches, at least if you count self-promotion as “work.”

LAST Monday alone, Mr. Ferriss — who has served as a guest lecturer on high-tech entrepreneurship at his alma mater, Princeton, for several years — spoke at Harvard Business School, followed by an afternoon doing an interview about his book, then finally another talk in front of 130 students at M.I.T. Mr. Ferriss, ever stimulated by yerba mate tea, was still there, hashing out personal-productivity theories over beers with Sloan School of Management graduate students at 11 p.m. on Monday night. All this, while recovering from jet lag after a flight from Japan, where he had taped a pilot for a television show — part self-help, part adventure travel — developed for the History Channel.

“If your definition of work is something primarily financially driven that you would like to do less of, like with my company, I spend far less than four hours a week on it,” he said.

All that other stuff — lecturing at the corporate campuses of Google and PayPal, blogging incessantly on his www.fourhourworkweek.com — that’s, well, “evangelizing,” he said.

Which is not to say he plans to become an Anthony Robbins for the geek set, touring relentlessly and hawking DVDs on late-night infomercials.

“I’d be much better off putting my time into three or four really good blog posts,” he said.

But, of course. That would take much less work.

The Facebook (R)evolution

Connie Bensen writes about the newly introduced advertising opportunities on Facebook and she's very skeptical about the overall user experience.
And Seth Godin compares Hotmail to Facebook. Not a flattering comparison.

My take? Something reaks. Rather awful.

It's almost feels like Facebook was the pot dealer in the school yard, giving away free joints and, after we all got hooked and shared our personal information, they are trying to sell the real drugs to us. Needles in the arm, baby. And the advertisers are waiting around the corner to provide the dealers with more stuff to support the addiction and reap the benefits.

Now, the big questions is: Can Facebook turn their new advertising model into Google's AdSense? My answer: No way. I smell a bit of desperation here. Facebook was developed with the user in mind and they never thought about a real advertising model, a model that could make Mark Zuckerberg a real billionaire, instead of a paper billionaire.

Nick Carr says it best:

"Facebook, which distinguished itself by being the anti-MySpace, is now determined to out-MySpace MySpace. It's a nifty system: First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with."

Is it time to write off Facebook? Not quite yet. But they are one of those boxers that win decisively the first round, already pronounced the winner until the opening bell of the second round rings and they get hit hard in the head.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Can they come back? I wouldn't bet on it. There are many young fighters out there, waiting for their chance. They are hungrier, will learn from this mistake and don't get sucked in by reading and believing their own clippings.

Ron Paul and Digg: Abuse or Grassroots PR?

I've downloaded the Digg Screensaver a few days ago and immediately realized something very strange: Ron Paul's name is extremely prominent on Digg. So prominent that it made me suspicious. I know that the rather obscure candidate has a loyal following and there's grassroots interest in his campaign. But does it really translate into constant mention of his activities?

Apparently, my gut feeling was right Especially the comments showcase that Paul supporters see nothing wrong with it.

Just like stuffing the ballot box, I don't think this marketing tactic is ethical. And it will hurt Digg in the longrun.

Why would I search for news on Digg when it can be hijacked by a special interest group? Digg was meant for people and not for organizations. It's going to be a tough fight for Digg to ensure that special interest group can't own the site. And Ron Paul?

I don't believe it's in his best interest to continue this way of marketing. I understand why it's done: limited funds. But it's intrusive. It's over the head. And that's the enemy of any social network. And doesn't offer you a chance to connect with voters outside of your bubble.

Blog + Widget = Blidget

If you have a blog and want to offer your content as a blidget, you should try out the product from Widgetbox. I was able to convert my blog into a blidget in a few minutes. The interface is very clean and you can read the blog well.
A very nice idea and a good package for blogger. I embedded my blog on Facebook and you can check it out here.

POST

Charlene Li just presented at the Forrester's Consumer Forum 2007. Titled 'Your customers are revolting', Charlene discussed how to better strategize in the social networking environment and ways to better connect with social netwroking participants.

She discussed her upcoming book Groundswell and her definition of the title:

"Groundswell – a spontaneous movement of people connecting, using online tools, taking charge of their own experience, and getting what they need – information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power – from each other."

If you want to be successful in the era of Groundswell, she and her co-author Josh Bernoff created an actionable framework called POST:

P = profile (what are your customers doing in the groundswell?)
O = objectives (what are you trying to accomplish?)
S = strategy (how are you trying to change your relationship with customers?)
T = technology (what social technologies will you use?)

Most brands skip the first three steps and immediately focus on Technology.

Point well taken. It takes a lot of restraint not to focus on the coolness and newness of innovative communication platforms, instead focusing on the people and how they currently interact with and discuss your brand on social platforms.

To give a better framework for more relevant interactions with people, Charlene introduced the Ladder of Participation - People on social platforms display different degrees of participation:

- Creators (They have something important to share - Bloggers)
- Critics (The Tripadvisors and Amazon reviewers of the world)
- Collectors (People that organize information - The Wikipedia editors)
- Joiners (The people that join MySpace and Facebook because their friends are there)
- Spectators (They don't join the conversation - just come by and visit once in a while)
- Inactives - They might have broadband and are tech optimists but they have no interest. Yet. They can join at any moment.

Warning: This is not a segementation technique because these degrees of participation change from brand to brand, from interest to interest. You might be a critic on Amazon reviewing marketing books but a spectator on Facebook while being a creator on your own blog.

According to Charlene, by understanding how your customers utilize social platforms and embracing their needs and desires, you will turn the current customer revolt into reformation.

Production. Not perfection.

Good read from Financial Times about Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist.

His pure focus on the user experience is laudable and some of his bonmots are even better:

- Listen to what users want. Try to make the site faster and better.
- No meetings, ever. "I find them stupefying and useless."

And my favorite: Put speed over perfection: "Get something out there. Do it, even if it isn't perfect."

I've heard that before.

Conversations happen with or without you

Humans are communicative, generous and lonely. That hasn't changed in 4,000,000 years, since our brains were wired.

Many people have conversations about your brand. You can be involved. Or stay on the sidelines.

Conversations are at the heart of marketing. How can you get to know your customers if you don't have conversations? This can be done in person, on social networks, through sophisticated email campaigns.

Imagine launching a new car. The old way of marketing to people would mean mass reach for 3 months and then hoping for the best. Creative wouldn't change because you made the decision to launch the car in a certain way more than 6 months ago.
Now, imagine launching a car, listening to the conversation for a few weeks and then completely adjusting your campaign, based on these conversations?

Customers will understand, appreciate your reaction and this could be the start of a beautiful relationship. What are you waiting for?

Two heavyweights

Still more than 3 days to go but the highlight of Advertising Week took place today at the MIXX Conference: Charlie Rose interviewing Seth Godin.

A few topics covered:

- Advertisers can't act as terrorists anymore and hold consumers hostage. People want to see what they want to see not what we want them to see.
- The time of mass media is over. Brands have to count on people to spread the message. Only remarkable products and ideas will be successful and make people talk about them.
- Successful brands will be connectors: Connecting people to people, people to ideas and people to products.

I'll post a link to the video of this insightful discussion once it's available.

Good to be in New York

Arriving really late in New York due to JetBlue problems (ATC didn't allow planes to land in JFK. Not Jet Blue's problem but how they communicated that problem to us showed their disregard for customer service. JetBlue: Customer Service is part of your marketing effort.) we settled in at 1.30am in SoHo. Next door is an Italian Festival with Calzone, cannelloni and 'Drown the Clown'. Coney Island in SoHo, including sleeping drunks on sidewalks. Nice change from Maine.

Checked my vacation emails in the afternoon and discovered big news from Google that might turn out being the first battle between the search giant and Facebook:

Techcrunch writes:

"The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time."

25hoursaday.com goes a bit more into detail and criticizes:

"From my perspective, I'm skeptical of a lot of the talk about social network portability because the conversation rarely seems to be user centric. Usually it's creators of competing services who are angry about "lock-in" because they can't get a new user's contacts from another service and spam them to gain "viral growth" for their service. As for the various claims of social network overload only the power users and geeks who join a new social network service a month (WTF is Dopplr?) have this problem."

In my opinion, it's too late to fight Facebook. The Internet has become a huge swap meet. It's harder and harder to get the attention of people and sustain it. We have numerous identities, avatars, passwords to access sites and communicate with other people. I'm Uwe Gemini on Second Life, have 5 different emails, 7 passwords - you know the drill.
What everyone still seems to not understand is that Facebook is becoming the new Internet. Consider the general trends:

Facebook is the new Internet. It's a closed community but every user can let the outside in. It's up to them. I have no idea how Google can change/improve/transform the Facebook experience. But I know that Google doesn't have a fighting chance to overtake Facebook in social media. Announcements are a dime a dozen. Just ask Sony and their embarassing delay of Home.
Now, if Google or Yahoo would acquire Facebook that would be a different story. But why would Facebook even bother?

Why it's all about the user experience

While vacationing in Maine, my 2.5 year old daughter learned to use the iPhone. She's not making calls, she doesn't check her email and she doesn't check the weather forecast. But she knows how to explore all the pictures that I've taken. Mostly of her, as you would expect from a proud father. She knows the photos button, can scroll through all pictures, move them around, enlarge them. I showed her the scroll function first but didn't have to tell her anything after.

That's where the future is: User Experiences that are self-explanatory, that feel very organic. If you have anything to learn on a site or dealing with new gadgets, the learning curve has to be very small. And enjoyable. Don't design experiences for adults. Design them for toddlers. If they don't get it with their endless patience, adults won't get it either.

And now I'm back enjoying lobsters, blueberry ale and some time away from Web 2.0.
Reality 1.0 is calling. See you next week at Advertising Week.

The Widget News keep coming

Three developments in the widget world:

- Google announced this week the launch of Gadget Ads (BTW: Why do they call them gadgets and not widgets? Is being different for Google so important?)
- Cory Treffiletti reflects in his column 'If Widgets Morph Into Spyware, Bad Things Could Happen' about the possibility that widgets will be used by malicious marketers. Remember Spam?
- Yours truly was featured in an Automotive News article (Subscription required). I won't bore you with my brilliant quotes, just add a good remark by Pam Webber.

“It's the difference between push and pull marketing,” says Pam Webber, a vice president of Widgetbox, a San Francisco company that creates widgets.

“People will use widgets to be more discerning in what online information they experience, because they can actively pick and choose it. Consumers will be able to pull whatever content they want and, in turn, will have more control over the advertising they absorb.”

As I said in a previous post, widgets are the marketing fad of the year. We'll see spyware widgets, more and more useless widgets, great widgets that can't break through the widget clutter and a few very successful widgets.

Widgets are not magical solutions to every marketing problem.
They are a great supplement to your overall campaign.

Conversational Marketing is where the real game is.
Widgets help bridge the gap between push and pull. They are interesting hybrids: Created as a push mechanism for marketers to communicate their message. The only pull mechanism is the necessity for users to download. If your widget is just another media push unit, the pull will quickly disappear because users will push the Uninstall button very quickly.

Get back to the sandbox

We all heard of the Cluetrain Manifesto. If you haven't, please leave this blog immediately and read it. The main thesis of the groundbreaking book, authored by Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger, was that in the Information Age 'Markets are conversations.'

8 years later, Doc Searls, Peter Hirshberg, Technorati's chairman and Steve Hayden, Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy& Mather Worldwide, extended the Cluetrain concepts to the office with a paper titled "The Manifesto on Monday Morning: How to put the wisdom of Cluetrain into action when you get to your office." It was presented at the Conversational Marketing Summit in San Francisco last week.

As I haven't had a chance to read it, I quote the ZDNet blog:

"The Cluetrain Manifesto was ahead of its time–before the “Live Web” of blogs, wikis, RSS and the high-velocity, real-time information flow–and business practices are just beginning to catch up. The paper offers guidelines for applying conversational marketing for business and real world examples, and deals with the fundamental concerns marketers have entering the new terrain, e.g., How do brands enter a conversation? How do they syndicate conversations? How do you make advertising include your customer? How do marketers deal with an audience of thousands or millions of Web publishers?

The authors also include a “Conversational Advertising Code of Conduct,” and are solicitating comments in true conversational marketing fashion. Among the “codes” are the four areas where transparency is required: Use of a publisher’s content, the editorial process, attributing advertising and influencing content creators.

“Conversational advertising will fail if it is exploited as a means to cover-up sponsored blogging, pay-per-posting, or any other publishing that is supported and influenced by a brand without being represented as such,” the authors wrote regarding a blurring line between advertising and content.

Doc Searls offers his rules of the road for conversational marketing road, such as:

The purpose of conversation is to create and improve understanding, not for one party to “deliver messages” to the other. That would be rude.
People in productive conversation don’t repeat what they’re saying over and over. They learn from each other and move topics forward.
Conversational marketing is carried out by human beings, writing and speaking in their own voices, for themselves—not just for their employers.
Conversational marketing’s heartbeat is the human one, not some media schedule. Brands need to work incessantly to be understood within the context of the market conversation and to earn and keep the respect of their conversational partners.
From a monetary standpoint, authenticity and credibility come into play for the most savvy buyers. According to the paper, click-through rates on ads featuring conversations are often much higher than conventional ads.

Hence, conversational marketing will graduate from conceptual framework to a path to profits, and products, brands and services will be better informed via the conversation."

We see some brands embracing this concept. However, most brands are still on the sideline, waiting to see if this is just another fad or a real change in people behavior.

The most fundamental paradigm shift for sideliners is to transfrom from teacher to student. Brands used to teach consumers what to do, how to behave, gave them positive reinforcement for good behavior ('You purchased this product - Good Boy.') and bad behavior ('You don't want this product - Let's switch to the Noriega torture and continue to bombard you with irrelevant, loud and annoying messages.')

The switch from teacher to student is tough. But everyboy who's a parent knows that you can be a teacher while learning at the same time. You will widen your horizon and learn fascinating things about your kid and, most often than none, about yourself when you have the willingness and openess to learn. From your kid. And your customers.

The best place to develop campaigns is in the sandbox. Don't bring your best clothes, expect to get dirty and enjoy yourself.

P.S.: Get cutting-edge ideas and observations about the Age of Conversation here.

Branded Entertainment

It has been said many times: Brand have to become content providers and utilize their brand values and attributes in an entertaining environment.
Reburban, a Dutch agency, created 'The Millionaire' an entertaining project for the Dutch Lottery.

It allows to live your life as a super-rich in first person. The challenge for everyone is 'Can you handle the rich life?' Pick the right girl? Enhance her in the right way? (I didn't say it wasn't sexist...) Choose the right car.
I found it very entertaining and wonder if I should go back and make other choices.

When it comes to branded, online entertainment we're still at Mile 1 of a marathon. Let's make sure to judge all new efforts accordingly.

My virgin flight

I had the opportunity to fly from LA to NY and decided to experience Virgin America for the first time. The hype has died down and I wanted to see how Virgin America measures up to low-cost carriers such as Jet Blue and Southwest.

The online experience when purchasing tickets was on the same level as Jet Blue/Southwest: intuitive and no unnecessary frills. Check-in and boarding are very typical and generic, it just feels a bit more upscale because of Virgin’s advanced design.

When you walk into the plane two things stand out: Mood-lighting and the fresh smell of the leather seats. That smell will disappear (they’ve only been around for a few weeks) but the mood lighting enhances the flight experience. It just makes the trip feel more upscale and in line with other advanced travel experiences (W Hotels). The seats are comfortable, recline further than other coach seats I’ve sat in before.

I was mostly looking forward to the Entertainment Center, called ‘red’. Overall, I would give it a ‘7’ out of 10:
- Music Selection is fantastic: Either 16 radio stations (from Wine Country Radio to Dance) or you can choose from 225 artists: Mozart, Coldplay, Underworld, Johnny Cash, Barry Manilow, Aqualung – they do have something for anyone’s taste. Even Bert and Ernie are there to entertain the little ones.
- TV selection is below average. CNN, A&E, Food Network were one of the few channels that worked. Some channels didn’t work, some were sorely missed (local networks, very important when you’re flying on weekends and don’t want to miss out on sports).
- 16 music videos were offered. Too mainstream, nothing that interested me. Can you say, Kelly Clarkson?
- Good selection of movies (300, Blades of Glory, Hoax, Waitress, The lives of others), the $8 price was a bit too high, but they offered more than 10 free short movies. Very cool.
- Premium TV: A few selected shows of The Office, Simpsons, Heroes and (yes, I’m not making this up) Twin Peaks. The cost of $1.99 seems a tad high since I can get the same content on iTunes and the selection felt arbitrary. Hopefully, networks will partner up with Virgin America in the near future to market their new shows.
- Multi-lingual TV: A mixture of Korean, Japanese and Chinese shows with a few Hispanic episodes. 75% of the content is tailored towards Asian customers. Interesting approach.
- 11 different games one can choose from. I played Doom for a few moments, because of the lag it felt like playing on an old computer.
- The chat functions are pretty cool but nobody was chatting at all.
- The email and Internet functions are already part of the user interface but not functioning yet.
- My favorite: the food selection. Flight attendants still make one tour of the cabin but you can continue making orders on your screen, right before the landing. My order took only 2 minutes to be delivered to my seat. That’s better than any call button. Sodas are free, alcoholic drinks and any snack will cost you.
- The real bad: My system acted up quite a bit, stalled for a few minutes and it finally rebooted. I guess Linux is not as good as advertised. I saw a few people with the same issue.

The main attraction: Customer Service. Flight attendants are very friendly and helpful. Pure perfection. That’s their best marketing attribute right now.

Overall, I would fly Virgin America again. I wish they would have chosen smaller airports, just like Jet Blue when they started to fly from Long Beach and Burbank. But I would choose them over the other two any day.

Not reading enough books?

I admit, it has become tough to read books: the demands of job and life in 2.0, family, kid: it's very hard to find time for books.
Dailylit.com has the answer for you: You can get your book fix via email or RSS feed - especially a good idea for PDA's and my trusted iPhone. Books are divided into bit-size installments you can read in a few minutes. Dailylit focuses on classics: you can choose between Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, René Descartes and tons of worthwhile reads.

Sure, this is not for the book chinstroker. It doesn't provide you with the real experience intended by the author. But it's an interesting approach to make these voluminous novels accesible for the MTV generation. Personally, I think it works best for books like Sun Tzu's 'Art of War'. A quote that I received in my first installment could be right from Tom Peters:

'The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom,
sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness.'

Cement Heads Part 2

Follow-up to Friday's post about Andrew Keen's book 'The Cult of the Amateur'.
Stephen Colbert owns him.